Methodology

Research Methodology

The development of the INDB involved two main steps:

  1. Creation of a Raw Food Nutrient Database:

– Data was compiled from the ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and 2004, covering a total of 528 and 369 raw food items, respectively.
– Nutrient information from the IFCT was considered the primary source, with the UK food composition table as a secondary source if any nutrient data was missing.

  1. Creation of a Recipe Database:

– 611 recipes from “Basic Food Preparation, 4th Edition” and 513 from “The Art and Science of Cooking, 5th Edition” were collated.
– Duplicate recipes (258) were removed, and 148 recipes were added from popular Indian food blogs, resulting in 1,014 unique recipes. Each recipe was updated with English and local names and assigned unique codes.
– The recipe database in Microsoft Excel details ingredient amounts, total weight, number of servings, and serving size.
– Nutrient content per 100g and serving was calculated by summing individual ingredients, primarily using IFCT 2017 and 2004 data, with supplementary data from the UK food composition table (144 ingredients) and USDA database (54 ingredients).
– All calculations were performed using Stata version 17, and the STATA codes enabling researchers to update recipes and extract nutrients are freely available on GitHub at Indian Nutrient Databank INDB.

Click here to access the github link

Resources:

Kumud Khanna, Sharda Gupta, Rama Seth, Ranjana Mahna, Tejmeet Rekhi. ‘The Art & Science of Cooking’, Fifth Edition, New Delhi, Elite Publishing, 2007.
National Institute of Nutrition- Indian Council of Medical Research

Indian food composition tables. [Internet] 2017 [cited 05 01 2023]. Available from https://www.nin.res.in/ifct_book.html .

Public Health England, Composition of foods integrated dataset (CoFID) [Internet]. [cited 15 01 2023]. Available from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/composition-of-foods-integrated-dataset-cofid.

Usha Raina, Sushma Kashyap, Vinita Narula, Salila Thomas, Suvira, Sheila Vir and Shakuntala Chopra. ‘Basic Food Preparation: A Complete Manual’, Third Edition, New Delhi, Orient BlackSwan, 2011.

United States Department of Agriculture, FoodData Central [Internet]. [cited 15 01 2023]. Available from https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/.

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